Challenges and Opportunities for Engg. Students

Challenges and Opportunities for Engg. Students

With globalization and economic development during the past two decades India has opened up very promising openings and opportunities to the students in general and engineering students in particular. India and China are emerging as leaders and are considered to be potential major economic players of the world in the coming decades.

Young India:

Added to this, around 50% of the Indian population ranges between the age group of 18 to 35 and this trend is expected to continue till 2050 in contrast to western countries which have predominantly older population. This means that India is young and will be one of the major producers of human resource along with China. In this context we should remember that unless this vast human resource is harnessed as skilled manpower, it is going to be counterproductive. Thus we have two challenges ahead, namely, producing sufficient skilled manpower by establishing good institutions and providing opportunities to them by developing the right kind of infrastructure. If the former is not attended to, our country will miss a golden opportunity and countries like China will take over. Already China has realized this and is pursuing this activity aggressively. If the potential of youth is not tapped in a proper direction, it may lead to unhealthy activities like terrorism.

Shortage of Skills:

As per the report of the National Knowledge Commission headed by Sri Syam Pitroda, there are about 350 universities and 18,000 colleges offering higher education in the country to about 10% of the relevant age group. This is extremely inadequate for a country where the demographic dividend by way of a population is about 550 million youth. If we are to achieve a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 15% and above by 2015, we need to substantially increase the number of higher education institutes in the country. It further points that there must be 1500 institutions in the country providing higher education to cater to the needs of the fast growing industrial and economic needs of the country. Here the challenge is not just the quantity but the quality as well. Every industry is facing an acute shortage of highly skilled and technical manpower. Presently, there are around 1500 colleges offering engineering education producing 6 lakh engineers every year. However, unfortunately only 15% of them are employable, according to a report. This means that we are not concerned about the quality of the engineers and thus creating a gap between the academics and the industry needs.

Plenty of Jobs:

In this context it is apt to say that there are plenty of jobs and opportunities for the engineering graduates. This year TCS announced that it requires 50,000 engineers, Infosys, Wipro, Accenture and Cognizent announced 30,000 each. Many other companies have also quoted similar figures. This implies that there are people and there are jobs, but the candidates do not have the requisite skills. It is the responsibility of academicians to make our students employable. The objective of this article is to provide some tips to the students and the academia in general to address this problem.

 It is estimated, by 2020, that 56 crores of technical manpower is required, of which India will be able to produce nearly 40-45 crores. However, all of them may not be employable unless we concentrate on the quality of the engineers who meet global standards. To solve this problem National Knowledge Commission suggested that the curricula be revised to be in tune with changing technological and industrial trends and creation of a national knowledge network. This requires three things.. 

• Improving soft and communication skills 
• Good knowledge of fundamentals and relating them to the environment and real life situations 
• New Ideas 

It is expected that the competition between India and China is with respect to innovation. Till now, India is known for its software services all over the world. Unless we get into finding new ideas it may not be possible for us to survive with this growth. Hence, it is necessary to inculcate a critical thinking and problem solving process among students. Any small innovation or value addition should be recognized and encouraged. The students must be made aware of the intellectual property rights on what ever innovation they make. When an MNC invited innovative ideas from the students which can be implemented, they received nearly 1,70,000 entries. Many of them are very much useful and can be implemented with low cost. Four simple ideas are mentioned here. 

• Detachable tooth brush 
• A foldable bicycle 
• A ring with a GPS support and 
• Clay cups 

Detachable tooth brush

We all know that, when we brush our teeth only the head part of the tooth brush is being used, while the other part, namely, the handle is only to hold the tooth brush. If we have a mechanism to replace only the worn out head of the brush, a lot of material is saved and the usage of plastic comes down drastically in tooth brushes.

Foldable Bicycle:

Imagine a situation where a bicycle is folded and carried in a suitcase like our clothes. We can open the bicycle and coolly we can pedal out. This idea is already been implemented and being used. It should be made as light as possible while being sturdy, yet affordable.

A ring with a GPS support:

We are all aware of the deaths due to heart attacks. Accidents are on the rise. It is also noted that if these people get medical aid within half an hour of the episode, the chances of survival is very high. A student has come out with an idea to design a ring in which there is a small chip which can store some important mobile numbers with GPS support. With one press on the ring, they all will be activated by sending SMSs to them informing the place where he/she is with the help of GPS.

Clay cups:

Use of plastic is becoming a big problem for us. If we can reduce the usage by any amount, is good. Using clay cup is not a new phenomenon, and the practice is existing in states like UP and Bihar for taking beverages. If a layer can be coated on them with plastic like glazy paper then these can be used in place of plastic cups. A small coating will be a value addition to this clay cups giving employment to many rural folk.

 The industry is looking forward to students with such innovative ideas. It is not necessary that the student should know every thing he/she studies in his/her four years of engineering. It is expected that he/she should have the following. 

• Good communication skills 
• Good at fundamentals 
• Ability to work in a group 
• Aptitude to learn new concepts 
• Adaptability to the changing technological trends 

Students need to be clear about their goals and pursue them with vigour. They need to be proactive and improve their soft skills by participating in group discussions/ seminars etc. and utilize their time effectively. It is advised that they should nurture his/her passion or hobby like sports/ music/dance etc.

Skills Required: 

Good communication skills 

Good at fundamentals 

Ability to work in a team 

Aptitude to learn new concepts 

Adaptability to the changing technological trends 

Innovation